Chapter 26
Gabby couldn’t stop touching that big body of his. It felt addictive, as if once she’d allowed herself to feel that attraction, it chased away nearly every other thought in her head.
But not the one that warned her about trusting someone like Barnaby, raised in the lap of privilege.
The one that wondered why he wanted her, someone not in his world, someone not his race.
She hated having to think about that factor, but how could she avoid it with a member of the Carmichael family?
Normally she liked to think things through before she had sex with someone.
But all those cautions and warnings were quickly dissolving under the force of overwhelming physical attraction.
When he put his hand in the small of her back to guide her up the grassy slope, fire shot to her belly.
When he took her hand as they hurried along the paved walkway, her heart melted at how tenderly his fingers interlaced with hers.
He kept checking to see if she was still with him, still into it.
And every time, part of her knew she should make sure of a few things, the way she usually did.
And part of her just wanted to forget all that and plunge into the pleasure offered by that gleam in his eyes and the flex of his muscles.
She finally snapped out of that pleasure-haze in the elevator to the top floor of the most elegant apartment building she’d ever seen.
“I have a checklist of questions I need to ask before we do this.”
He grinned. “That’s what I love about you. You always do your research.”
Love? No, he didn’t mean it that way. Moving on. “You don’t mind?”
“Whatever you need. Hit me.” The elevator doors opened with a whisper.
He punched in a code on the door and they stepped inside to a white-carpeted paradise.
Bay windows looked out on the promenade and the dark ocean beyond.
Moonlight came and went behind drifts of clouds.
It was absolutely quiet up here above the streets and the park.
The hush of money, she thought, remembering his comment about soundproofing.
She struggled to remember the questions on her checklist. They were such vibe-killers. But they had to be asked. “Have you ever had any STDs?”
“No. But we would obviously use protection no matter what.”
“So you always use protection?”
“Always. Except the first time. We had a scare and I learned my lesson.” Barnaby turned on a sleek titanium lamp that gave the room a subtle golden aura. Everything about this space invited you to feel coddled and treasured.
Or maybe that was Barnaby himself. He walked to a small bar set into an antique cabinet. It held a soda water siphon, which he used to pour out two glasses, into which he squeezed a lime.
Her favorite refreshing drink. He’d noticed that, and remembered.
“When was that?” she asked as he handed it to her. If he’d given her something alcoholic, she would have been suspicious.
“Is that part of your checklist? Here’s to thorough research and complete satisfaction.
” Amused, he clicked his glass against hers.
His deep resonant voice played on her nervous system like a cellist plucking strings.
And “satisfaction”…oh man. That set up a full-on throbbing.
This is foreplay, she thought suddenly. Or at least he was turning it into foreplay.
“I like to know as much as I can about someone before I get too intimate.”
“Fair. Okay, the first one was at boarding school when I was fifteen. Her period was late after that and we were both freaking out. I felt responsible because, well, I was. Can’t have a baby without sperm.
Anyway, I told her if she got pregnant, we could get married.
That freaked her out even more. She didn’t want to be a teen mom.
I didn’t want to be a teen father, either.
She nearly had a breakdown, she was so terrified. ”
“What happened?”
“She went home for a month. I think she might have had an abortion, but she didn’t tell me about it.
When she came back she said her period had started and everything was okay.
Then she broke up with me and said she had to focus on school.
That was the first and last time I ever had sex without protection. ”
Wow, he’d given her much more than she’d asked for with that story. “How did you feel about her possibly having an abortion?”
“I don’t know if she did or not,” he clarified. “I ran into her a couple years ago in New York and I wanted to ask, but she had her toddler with her and I just…decided to let it go. Forever. I’ll probably never know, unless she decides to tell me.”
She’d once had a pregnancy scare herself, and knew the territory intimately from a woman’s point of view.
The anxious waiting. The fear. The uncertainty.
The sorting through options. The testing of the relationship.
But she’d never heard a man talk about how it felt to him.
“Does that bother you? That you don’t know for sure? ”
He tilted his head, which made his dark eyes catch the light in a way that made him even sexier.
“It bothers me that she didn’t trust me to have her back.
But I think her parents wanted to keep it all hush-hush, and that included me.
Maybe they were right. I thought I could step up and rise to the occasion.
But we were only fifteen and we were just experimenting.
The relationship never would have lasted.
Now she’s married and happy and has at least one toddler, maybe more by now. ”
Good answer. She liked it. But still…
“Doesn’t it bother you that you had no say in what she did?”
“Oof.” He winced and shot a glance at the bar. “Maybe I should have poured something a little harder. You’re a tough interviewer, Gabby Ramon.”
She made a face. “I know. Real mood-killer, huh?”
“Hey, if this is what you need, this is what you get. Want the truth?”
“Yes, although if it makes you less sexy to me, I’ll be sad.”
“Damn, those are high stakes.” Laughing a little, he sat himself on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees, one big hand still holding his glass.
“Truth. Maybe a little, but mostly I was relieved. I went home for break and told Tamara about it and she was furious with me. She went through a litany of all the things a woman goes through during pregnancy, the risks, the dangers, the way her body is changed forever, not to mention her life. I tried to put myself in a woman’s shoes and imagine if I was facing all that.
It was…humbling, I guess. My part was easy, you know?
An orgasm and I was done. I got over myself pretty quick after that.
And swore I’d use protection so the next time I got someone pregnant, it would be because we both wanted it. ”
Looking at Barnaby, with his rumpled hair and rueful one-sided smile, Gabby had a hard time believing she’d once thought of him as arrogant. He probably still had pockets of arrogance left from how he’d been raised. But when he found them, at least he questioned them.
“Well?” he asked her, leaning back and stretching out his legs. “How much sexy did I lose?”
“You know perfectly well you didn’t lose a speck.” She walked over to him, but not yet close enough to touch. “You might have even gained a notch or two.”
“Right on. Love to hear it. Got any more for me? Extra-credit opportunity?”
Should she just tell him to take off his shirt and call it good? Maybe one more question. “I think you already answered my question about interracial dating.”
“That I’ve done it?”
“Yes. I’m hoping that means I don’t have to explain a bunch of shit to you.”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. I might have dated other Black women, but none of them were you.”
She liked that answer too. “Right. So that’s not my question.
My question is…” But none of her other standard questions formed in her mind.
They all had to do with trying to make sure the guy wasn’t someone who would hold her back, or embarrass her in front of her family, or rely on her for money.
Her mother had warned her to guard against those types of men, and so many other types as well.
She was well fortified to fend off any man with bad intentions.
But asking Barnaby any of those questions would be laughable.
“Any ex-wives?” she finally asked.
“No.”
“Secret babies?”
“I think we covered that. I do have a secret mother, but you already know that. You already know more about me than most people. I’ve never talked about that boarding school scare to anyone except Tamara.”
She’d once done a story on a con man who wormed his way into the lives of grieving widows, and one of his methods was to seem emotionally available.
He would pretend to share deeply held secrets with his marks and he would always claim he’d never shared them before with anyone.
Was Barnaby someone like that? Roping her in with fake vulnerability?
If so, it wouldn’t work, not on her. She knew how that worked and she wouldn’t get fooled.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked gently, rising to his feet. “Is the secret mother a step too far? I’m not ashamed of that, but maybe your parents wouldn’t like it.”
Her parents. Ugh, what would her parents think of Barnaby? She knew her mother would be wary, since she’d spent her career battling the powerful and privileged “one-percenters.” She could practically hear her mother’s voice. He’ll use you and move on. I know his type. Politics is full of them.
But Mama, he’s different. He’s traveled the world. He works hard to make things better for people.
He’s not from our world, baby. Save yourself some trouble and shut it down.
No. Some kind of wild determination flooded through her. She didn’t want to shut it down. She liked Barnaby, a lot. Her body wanted him, her heart beat fast for him. Why should she always listen to her mother’s voice in her head instead of her own instincts? She was almost thirty. Enough!
“Come here,” she whispered.
Eyes full of questions, he stepped toward her.
She kept beckoning until they were front to front, the hard muscles of his chest so solid against her, like a warm wall of protection.
This man would stand up for her. No matter what.
She knew it with certainty, loud and clear enough to drown out her mother’s warnings.
She put a hand on his chest and walked him backwards now, toward the couch he’d just left. He dropped onto it, bringing her with him, on top of him, laughing a little. She straddled his thighs and shivered at the sheer pleasure those firm muscles gave her.
In the past, she’d always claimed that for her, sex was more mental than physical, that her pleasure depending on a cerebral connection.
But this was nothing like anything from the past. This was pure, one hundred proof, undiluted physical chemistry.
She shuddered with pleasure when he put his big hands on her hips.
His shirt was in her way, so she went for the top button, popping it off in her impatience to feel the soft rasp of his chest hair on her palms.
“Oops,” she whispered.
“Fuck it.”
His rough voice drove her lust up even higher. She moved her hips to get in closer contact with his swelling erection. Oh God. Right there, exactly there. She wanted to slide up and down that thick flesh, bring it inside her, but the sharp need was already building, and there was no stopping it.
He must have known, because he clamped her hips in a tight grip and ground himself against her, and then she was coming, still entirely clothed, a hard, sharp release that obliterated every sensation except for pure pleasure.
Her heart still pounding from that orgasm, she gave him a hazy smile. “We’re just getting started, right?”
“Appetizer,” he agreed with a grin. “Now let’s get naked.”
With eager fingers, she went back to work getting his shirt off. He did the same to her blouse. His fingers were so deft and in no time it was open and he was finding her nipples through her bra. “You’re even more beautiful than I imagined,” he murmured.
“Been doing a lot of that?”
“Imagining? Hell yeah. Can you blame a guy?”
She could not, since she’d been doing the same thing. And when she freed his erection from his pants, she was happy to see that her imagination had been spot on.
After that, things got so hot and heavy the world became a blur of bare flesh and ragged breathing and touches like fire.
His hand between her thighs, stoking heat and wetness.
Her legs wrapped around his body, hips moving to a drumbeat of need.
Naked and wild, they rolled around on the couch until he knelt on the carpet, spread her legs and licked her there until she screamed out loud.
Then he scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom with its immaculately made king-size bed.
It didn’t stay that way for long. By the time they were done, the covers had slid to the floor and the sheets were bunched up and sweated through.
When he came into her body—sheathed as promised—she shuddered for the third time around that hard rod of flesh.
His body arched over hers, muscles like steel, skin dark with sweat, as his own orgasm rocked through him.
When she came back to herself, Gabby was sprawled on her stomach, one knee bent, her arms bent overhead, like some kind of crime scene drawing.
Barnaby was on his back at an angle to her, their only contact his hand on her ass.
The steam they’d created seemed to hover in the air around them, and they needed to cool off.
Barnaby’s hand on her butt felt really, really good—solid and grounding and reassuring—and she didn’t want it to go anywhere.
She didn’t want him to go anywhere. Maybe neither of them would have to go anywhere.
Everything in the outside world could take care of itself.
They could just stay here and have more sex and more lime soda drinks and neither of them would ever have to worry about anything again.
When was the last time she’d felt this free of stress, of expectations, demands, worries? Never.
“Can we stay just like this for the rest of our lives?” she murmured.
“Works for me.” He traced a pattern on her skin, maybe letters, maybe not. Whatever it was, his touch was so soothing that she drifted off.
What seemed like a moment later, a phone was ringing and slivers of light were slicing through the blinds. Barnaby was gone and the bed seemed huge and empty without him.
She sat up and rolled the knots out of her neck. Her body felt thoroughly satisfied, and try as she might, she still couldn’t detect any bit of stress in her mind or heart. Very unusual, to say the least.
Barnaby came back into the room. The navy briefs snugly cupping his balls made her mouth go dry, as did the black hair scattered across his strong thighs. This man was fine.
“The lab called. We’ve got a problem,” he said soberly.